U.S. out of our database: ACLU requests hearing

February 24, 1999
Web posted at: 8:32 p.m. EST (0132 GMT)

The ACLU – in tandem with the Free
Congress Foundation, the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, the Center for Democracy and
Technology, the Eagle Forum, Concerned
Women for America and the Electronic
Privacy Information Center – sent a letter
last Wednesday to leaders of the
Government Reform Committee in Congress.

In the letter, the groups "respectfully
request that you hold a committee hearing
on the threat to privacy and civil liberties
posed by the abuse and authorized misuse
of federal databases. We are concerned
about proposals that the federal government
use database information, initially gathered
for one purpose, for completely unrelated
purposes, without the consent of the person
to whom the data relates."

According to the ACLU, the letter was sent
after the Washington Post reported
Congressional approval of nearly $1.5 million
in federal aid and technical assistance to
Nashua, N.H.-based Image Data for the
development of a national license
photograph database. The government
approved the aid hoping law-enforcement
officials could use the database in terrorism,
immigration and "identity crime" cases,
according to the news report.

The ACLU also has asked Congress to
strengthen the Drivers' Privacy Protection
Act of 1994, which it calls "loophole-ridden."
The organization charges that the law has
failed in preventing the selling or disclosing
of information about drivers without their
consent.

ACLU Washington National Office Director
Laura W. Murphy, who signed the letter on
behalf of the organization, said the aim is to
have "greater bipartisan oversight into the
federal government's role in protecting the
privacy rights of American citizens."

No government committee currently has
oversight on privacy issues, Murphy said.
"The right to privacy is not a distinct right;
it's one that's drawn from a variety of
Constitutional amendments," she said. "And
Congress doesn't treat it with the same level
of concern as it does, or used to, with other
rights."

The basic problem, Murphy said, is not in the
creation of databases, but in how they are
used. "Every time a new database is
proposed, it's presented as a practical
solution to a compelling problem, like a DNA
database that's proposed to make it easier
to catch criminals," she said. "They all sound
like a good idea, but inevitably they always
get flipped into use for another purpose, and
the end result is that there's no privacy left.
And there's no one in Congress connecting
the dots and no one keeping Congress to its
commitment to prevent use of the
databases for other purposes."

The letter came during a month of
controversy in a number of states that sold
driver's license information to Image Data.
They include South Carolina, where a citizen
has brought a class-action lawsuit against
the state charging violation of privacy
rights, and Florida, where the governor canceled the state's contract
with Image Data after an ACLU campaign there.

According to the ACLU, states have sold thousands of their license
files for a penny apiece. "For the government to prostitute our private
information is bad enough," ACLU Associate Director Barry Steinhardt
said in a statement. "And to charge only a penny for our privacy adds
insult to injury."